Public equity is driving the growth of the RWA market. RWA started with bonds and money funds, but tokenization of equities is also starting to find use cases in this category.
Public equity is being brought on-chain at a higher rate and has become the dominant type of RWA. The ability to trade some of the most popular trending stocks is also changing the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem, giving new life to exchanges that were less active.
Financial institutions are still interested in BTC, ETH, and some tokens, but stocks are attracting the attention of retailers as well as whale-sized traders.
Public stocks spark new wave of deals
According to Cryptorank datathere are 411 active markets in public equities with over $2 billion in open interest as of July 2026. The weight of public equities has increased to 46% of the market, and daily trading volume has already exceeded $2.4 billion.
Recent trends indicate that the RWA concept is primarily used for leveraged trading and access to unauthorized stock positions. RWA is not widely used for illiquid assets, and trading remains the primary use case for tokenization.
Although tokenization continues even without trading, the majority of open interest and daily trading comes from a small number of major US stocks.
RWA holders are also a growing group of crypto-native and stock traders. Over the past month, the total number of holders has increased by 30% to 1.2 million wallets. The recent wave of on-chain equities comes after years of ad hoc attempts to issue equities on blockchains. Only the latest wave of tokenization, specifically Robinhood Chain and Solana, have caught the attention of traders.
The influx of new traders also means that RWA assets will find the missing piece of the puzzle, ensuring an influx of new traders. liquidity.
Although Binance and specialized exchanges are catching up with new stock pairs, HyperLiquid and HIP-3 remain some of the main trading venues. Kraken is currently the source of 100 U.S.-based stocks and ETFs, with the S&P 500 index accounting for approximately 100 stocks. 1% The total daily trading volume of an exchange.
Bybit is also an important RWA hub, providing international traders with access to XYZStocks 24/7.
Tokenized stocks and perpetual futures markets remain unregulated, with issues such as jurisdiction, control, and ownership laws yet to be applied. At the moment, the market is a mix of permissionless platforms and a few regulated centralized exchanges.
Whale opens earnings season with Hyper Liquid
Equity perpetual futures also replaced gold and oil as the primary contracts in HIP-3. As of July, stock indexes are the most actively traded market, followed by individual stocks.
As the second quarter earnings season begins, the stock market is hoping for more market-moving news. In HIP-3, Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVIDA) and Micron Technology Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) are among the top five trending assets.
Recently, a whale opened a position after depositing into MU. $14 million USDC to Hyperliqid. MU is one of the actively traded contracts, attracting over 40 whale positions. Of these whales, 16 are long MU and the rest are shorting perpetual futures.
The on-chain stock market is also being watched for signs of a narrative formation, such as growing confidence in semiconductor stocks and the growth of AI.
